Our addictive society has to do what it wants to do. The freedom offered by all great spiritual traditions is quite different: spiritual and true freedom is wanting to do what you have to do to become who you are.

One will not, of course, turn away from what seems like the only game in town (political, economic or religious) unless one has glimpsed a more attractive alternative. Jesus is a living parable, an audiovisual icon of that more attractive alternative. We cannot even imagine it, much less imitate it, unless we see one human being do it first.